Shorter election process sounds good, but ...

Across America, voters and candidates alike say political campaigns are too long and too expensive.

There is much complaining, with pundits and scholars wondering out loud how to make the nominating/election processes shorter and more financially accessible.

Utah has tried, at least in its partisan primary elections, to find an answer.

Our partisan primaries are only six weeks long. True, in races like the governor's or for Congress, many candidates announce at least a year in advance. And gubernatorial and congressional races can cost upward of $1 million or more by Election Day.

But in the formal time frame — from the nominating convention where the candidate field is whittled down to two candidates to the primary election — is just over six weeks.

Years ago, Utah political parties used to hold county nominating conventions in May (where political offices wholly within a county, like county council or many legislative districts, are decided), and the state party conventions were in June.

The primary campaigns ran throughout the summer, culminating in a September primary election. Then general election campaigns were only two months or so long.

But that changed in 1984. That's when the majority Republicans in the Legislature worried that then-Democratic Gov. Scott M. Matheson, a popular guy, might seek a third term. The GOP gubernatorial candidates would spend all their money and effort fighting against each other all the way to September, while Matheson raised money and votes.

So legislators started fiddling with convention and primary dates — the end result being the current timetable settled on more than a decade ago.

A six-week primary sounds good — shorter and less expensive. The reality, however, is mixed.

Utah Democrats rarely have a primary election (the exception is when there is an open, major seat, like the U.S. Senate in 1992). But Republicans routinely have primary elections, sometimes even when an incumbent is running.

Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, for one reason or another, has been forced into primaries for his 3rd Congressional District seat time and again. This year Cannon barely survived the May state Republican Party Convention, getting out into a primary by maybe eight or nine delegate votes.

Cannon faces Jason Chaffetz, who nearly ran him out of office, in the only major primary in the state this year. Primary elections are June 24.